Clarity
by Missie2
Summary: Slowly, the nature of pearls begins to make itself known. Rose doesn't know what to make of it.


**Clarity**

" _ **Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn."**_

 _ **-Sylvia Plath**_

…..

 _Notes for Sodalite_

 _*She seems to like the feeling of digging her hands into sand, or lead granules. I asked her why and she couldn't tell me._

 _*She stares out the window when she's not occupied, looking at the stars. She could do this for a full cycle if I allow it._

 _*She still cannot talk unless she's answering a question. The words are coming easier but no complete sentences._

Rose stopped, and thought for a spell. There had to be more to make note of than that.

She looked over at her pearl, who was once again pressed up against the glass of her skyrise, staring out at the stars, perfectly still and silent. If she didn't have enough notes to send to Sodalite, she'd have to bring her in for a look-over. Going the first few times had been risky enough, she didn't want to make it a regular thing.

Sighing, she brought up a holo-cast to distract herself, or perhaps jog her perception a little. Within a few moments, an advertisment for the upcoming pearl series release popped up, chirpily talking about the many ways they could be customized...

 _Aha!_

"Pearl, come over here please," she called pleasantly, pushing the holo-cast away and bringing up a new screen. The pearl noiselessly made her way to her side.

"Sit," Rose invited, and pearl complied. "I've been thinking about your outfit."

The pearl looked down at the voluminous white gown she wore, calf-length with a single wide ruffle. Rose had chosen it specifically to match her own, and winced now internally at her conceit.

"I chose this dress for you," Rose continued. "But I have no idea if you even like white, or ruffles. Or long hair for that matter."

She had chosen long curls to match hers too, flatter than her own but flattering all the same, pulled into a low tail to rest on the left shoulder. Ornamental.

"You should choose how you'd like to look," she said, pulling up a series of images on the screen. "We can look at these together, and pick something. What would you like?"

Pearl's mouth opened, closed, opened again with no words.

"I...like...what you like," she said at last, wincing.

 _*She's still waiting to be shocked for non-compliance._

"And I would like you to choose something you would like," Rose told her in smooth, pleasant tones. Soothing. If she felt like she was complying, maybe she wouldn't feel like she was awaiting a shock.

"Look at this one," she said, pointing to a sky-blue gown with a long train, made of something stiff and shiny. "That would look lovely on you, I think."

"I...like...the...colour," the pearl stuttered.

"But not the design?" Rose prompted, and the pearl dropped her gaze to her hands, flinching slightly. "Yes, it is a bit much. Something simpler, then."

She scrolled down and found another blue frock, dark ocean blue, draped, knee-length with long sleeves. The pearl seemed to like something about this one, she tilted her head to the side to regard it.

"Good sleeves?" Rose asked, and the pearl shook her head with difficulty. "The length then."

"It's...more practical," the pearl exhaled sharply.

"Yes, you don't need to be as imposing as I have to be," Rose mused, marking the dress construct down casually even as her mind squealed with delight. "Practical then."

 _*She's shown a preference for something. And she didn't stutter so much when she expressed her opinion!_

It took a few more flips and fiddling with the algorithms before they found something the pearl seemed not just to agree with, but actually _liked._ Sky-blue, cut to just above the knee, a lightly flared skirt with subtle pleats and a simple mid-length sleeve. White stockings and simple flat shoes. She chose to cut her hair to just above shoulder-length with a slight curl at the ends.

It was simple, but it had freedom written all over it.

"Better?" Rose asked.

"Much better," Pearl agreed.

…..

"She chose it herself," Rose reminded Sodalite, who was escorting them with haste down the labyrinth of corridors.

"I got your notes," Sodalite said, nonplussed. "It's progress. But this is more important."

Sodalite threw open the double doors with a flourish, revealing...

….a pearl.

An admittedly fancy pearl, clad in sparkling scarlet gauze and blinking rapidly from its perch on the operating table. Rose could have sworn she'd seen it before...

"This one made it here all by herself," Sodalite told her with a dramatic wave of her arm. "I have no idea how she managed it, but she did. She's been glitching ever since though."

 _All by herself!_

"How is that possible?" Rose gasped, staring at the pearl as it twitched and shuddered.

"Well, if she would stop glitching we could ask."

Rose's pearl shuffled on her feet, when before she would have stood still as a statue. Rose's eyes did not miss this little difference.

"Do you want to go to her?" she asked.

Her pearl nodded slightly.

"Go ahead then," Sodalite said. She took Rose's elbow to pull her to the far end of the room as Rose's pearl hurried to the side of the glitching pearl.

"Make like we're not watching them, we might see something interesting," Sodalite told Rose in hushed tones. "She's obviously a high-caste's pearl, she's in really good condition. It's a miracle she made it here without getting stolen."

Rose watched her pearl take the other's hands, hold them to her chest. They didn't speak but the twitching softened, and the red-clad pearl slowly came to.

"Maybe she was dropped here by her owner?" Rose suggested.

"That's impossible, you're the only high-caste gem I've been in contact with," Sodalite said. "Unless..."

"I haven't told anyone," Rose cut her off. "You _know_ what kind of trouble I'd be in if anyone found out about this."

"Not as much as I'd be in, trust me," Sodalite said smoothly, toying with a lock of her short black hair. "I know she's here to have her spike removed, she brought me into this room before the glitch took over. She knew exactly where it was, somehow."

The two pearls were mostly still now, except for fleeting touches on the hands, the arms, their limbs gently fluttering as though pushed by a slight breeze.

"Huh," Sodalite said suddenly, squinting. "I think...I think they might be _talking_."

"Talking? They're not...they haven't said anything..."

"Look closely. Look at the way they're moving."

Of course, when it was pointed out, suddenly she saw it with amazing clarity. The little touches, the dipping and flickering of their eyes, the minute gestures...something was being communicated.

"This is huge," Sodalite said with a gleaming grin. "There's so much potential here, we've only scratched the surface."

It struck Rose then where she had seen this pearl before. It belonged to Emerald, her squadron friend.

"That's my friend's pearl," she whispered, pulling Sodalite further back from the pearls. "She had to have travelled over seventeen districts to get here!"

"That's impressive," Sodalite whispered back, still grinning.

"That's impossible," Rose told her. "Emerald is an excellent owner, she's not cruel. Why would this pearl take such a risk?"

"Good owner or not, freedom is freedom," Sodalite shrugged. "The best owners on the planet still make their pearls do things they wouldn't choose to do, run dangerous software through them, rape them..."

Hearing _that_ word, Rose started. It was a rare word, never heard but under the most heinous of circumstances. And Sodalite had thrown it into the conversation so _casually!_

"Emerald would _never..._ " she began and stopped, because she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"She uses her pearl for sex, doesn't she?" Sodalite asked bluntly.

And Rose had to nod, because she did. She knew.

"Sometimes it's in a nice heated rest pod with one _nice_ gem and sometimes it's on a barracks table in front of a crowd of hooting morons, but it all amounts to the same thing," Sodalite told her sternly. "If they can't say no, it's rape."

Rose knew she was right. It didn't make it any easier to swallow. She thought about the red-clad pearl making her way across seventeen blocks on her own, driven by a desperate need and a knowledge of where to find help, and it filled her with a plummeting sense of terror.

…..

She was troubled for some time after they returned from the factory, and shut herself in her rest pod to experience nothing for a while. She came out of it three cycles later, and slowly made her way through the skyrise, trying and failing to put her thoughts in order. She walked in on her pearl without realizing, and pearl didn't hear her.

She was in the atrium, having pulled up a holo-screen but muted the audio.

* _While I was under, she arranged a holo-cast without asking my permission._

The holo-cast was of a performance by a notable Lapis Lazuli, a certified genius in her field, dancing on a stage flooded with ionized water. Every jump, pull-up of the feet, dipping ronde and arch brought an arc of water over and around her body to dance with her.

Rose's pearl was mimicking her moves, finishing each one with poise and perfect balance. But there was a difference in their movements all the same; the Lapis' moves were as fluid as the water she danced with, her muscles rippled with the motion. Her expressions melted and flowed with the change of her positions.

Pearl, on the other hand, was more expressive. Practically weightless, her moves were forceful, powerful. She rose and sank more deeply than Lapis, held her poses for longer until she practically fell into the next movement.

Her expression was neutral as it usually was, blank as any and all pearls. But her body spoke emotion for her; despair, rage, euphoria.

The Lapis finished with a deep curtsy, Pearl finished by curling into a ball on her hands and knees.

Rose knew she had seen something that hadn't been meant for her, and rather than destroy that little moment of self-discovery she silently left the room and went back to her rest pod, to pretend she had never left it.

…..

To prepare for the dancing scene, I watched clips from Pina by Wim Wenders. It's a masterpiece, check it out.


End file.
